Eye For An Eye

Eye For An Eye

An eye for an eye is the principle that a person who has injured another person is penalized to a similar degree, or according to other interpretations the victim receives the value of the injury in compensation. According to Jewish interpretations the victim in criminal law gets financial compensation based on the law of human equality eschewing mutilation and 'lex talionis'.

The English word talion means a retaliation authorized by law, in which the punishment corresponds in kind and degree to the injury, from the Latin talio. The phrase "an eye for an eye" is sometimes trivially referred to using the Latin term lex talionis, the law of talion.